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Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software

Overview

What is Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software?

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the core OS for the ASA suite. It provides firewall functionality, as well as integration with context-specific Cisco security modules. It is scaled for enterprise-level traffic and connections.

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Learn from top reviewers

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software Review

Rating: 10 out of 10
March 31, 2024
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
In my Datacenter as a border firewall
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Verified user
Consultant
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software16 years of experience

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software Review

Rating: 8 out of 10
March 24, 2024
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software is used to create and enforce security policies to control the traffic entering and exiting the organization's network. We als...
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Verified user
Engineer
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software4 years of experience

Cisco ASA Firewall Review

Rating: 9 out of 10
August 27, 2023
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
So we have shared usage of it and for us we really just implement rules and it to block allowed, deny whatever it is, traffic within our network.
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Verified user
Employee
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software5 years of experience

Adaptable yet Powerful Firewall Solution

Rating: 9 out of 10
June 20, 2023
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We have several Cisco ASA and FTD firewalls in use within our organization. The ASA name is the legacy platform for the now current FTD firewalls. Both platforms provide secur...
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Verified user
Administrator
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software6 years of experience

Choosing Cisco ASA and ASAv for reliable, scalable, and secure VPN

Rating: 10 out of 10
May 1, 2023
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
Our employee count was growing and we wanted to have a scalable, easy to administer and cost effective solution for a VPN concentrator. We wanted to support concurrent connect...
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Verified user
C-Level Executive
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software4 years of experience
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How Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software Differs From Its Competitors

Resilience

Cisco ASA is great and trustable product when it comes to cybersecurity and I felt environment is more secure behind the ASA Firewall. It has stopped couple of attacks with tighter access lists. With great Network Address Translation support ASA has helped keeping internal enterprise network …
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Leadership in Resilience

More investment is needed when talking about cybersecurity, its not where we need to think about saving capex or opex. As this is very important today to secure the infrastructure, end users, remote users as attack surface is really widened, its not just one way entry, today enterprises are open …
Continue reading

Resilience

Clearly, resilience differs from security. Resilience is about knowing something is going to come. That is the new paradigm in the security world, compared to the past which was about defending and making ure nothing happens. Over time, it became clear that watertight prevention is no longer a …
Continue reading

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

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Features

Firewall

A firewall is a filter that stands between a computer or computer network and the Internet. Each firewall can be programmed to keep specific traffic in or out

8
Avg 8.5
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Product Details

What is Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software?

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the core operating software for Cisco’s ASA suite. It supports a variety of specialized network security and firewall options, allowing users to modularize to their business needs. It is scaled for enterprises through “clustering” ASAs, enabling 128 Gbps processing load and 50 million concurrent connections.

Cisco ASA provides a robust VPN setup process and integrates with other Cisco security offerings, including Cloud Web security and Trustsec. CWS provides cloud-based systems security across public and private clouds, and Trustsec is a software-defined segmentation product that mitigates the scope of network threats and data breaches. The platform also supports IPv4 and IPv6, enabling a smoother evolution in Internet Protocols for users.

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the core OS for the ASA suite. It provides firewall functionality, as well as integration with context-specific Cisco security modules. It is scaled for enterprise-level traffic and connections.

Reviewers rate VPN and High Availability highest, with a score of 9.1.

The most common users of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews From Top Reviewers

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(1-2 of 2)

Great product, with lots of next generation features.

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
June 02, 2023
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology
Computer Networking Company, 501-1000 employees
Vetted Review
Verified User
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
6 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Cisco ASA is [our] organization's firewall product, which is used as [a] firewall [and] to support remote VPN connectivity. It secures the perimeter and remote users. With Cisco ASA we have layer 3 and 4 security based on IP addresses and ports. Also with next-generation Cisco ASA antimalware, antispyware, antispam, [and] cloud-based URL filtering are also utilized.
Pros
  • Secure the perimeter
  • Secure remote users
  • Secure network from unauthorized connections initiated from outside
  • Secure from zero day attacks
Cons
  • Cisco ASA can have better GUI compared with other firewall vendors.
  • Cisco can make its security cloud better.
Likelihood to Recommend
Well suited when higher network performance is required. When we particularly have high throughput. Cisco ASA is backed by Cisco Inc which provides [the] best support in [the] network market. Cisco ASA is less simple when we compare it with other vendors. Cisco can put more focus on [the] Telecommunication Sector as well on enterprises.
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software Feature Ratings
Firewall (11)
100%
10.0
Identification Technologies
100%
10.0
Visualization Tools
100%
10.0
Content Inspection
100%
10.0
Policy-based Controls
100%
10.0
Active Directory and LDAP
100%
10.0
Firewall Management Console
100%
10.0
Reporting and Logging
100%
10.0
VPN
100%
10.0
High Availability
100%
10.0
Stateful Inspection
100%
10.0
Proxy Server
100%
10.0
Return on Investment
  • Cisco has positive impact as security is a integrated part of enterprise.
  • Cisco has great support, in less time you can resolve issues, which also has [a] positive impact.
Alternatives Considered
Cisco ASA is doing well, has [a] lot of documents available, [and easy] implementation, however, other vendors are also very easy to deploy. Cisco ASA has [a] great support team. Cisco ASA is truly [a] next-generation product. Now it is cloud-managed, along with zero-touch provisioning(ZTP). Cisco ASA is integrated with Cisco FTD which makes it centrally controlled.
Other Software Used
Resilience
Cisco ASA is great and trustable product when it comes to cybersecurity and I felt environment is more secure behind the ASA Firewall. It has stopped couple of attacks with tighter access lists. With great Network Address Translation support ASA has helped keeping internal enterprise network private. Cisco has great support which really helped in easily recovering from network outages.
Cisco ASA active-passive implementation really helped in keeping the network very highly available.
And with context mode feature we can utilise both ASA devices in active-active, so keeping both devices distributing the load equally and utilising the investment in more smarter way.
Leadership in Resilience
More investment is needed when talking about cybersecurity, its not where we need to think about saving capex or opex. As this is very important today to secure the infrastructure, end users, remote users as attack surface is really widened, its not just one way entry, today enterprises are open to work from anywhere, which gives bad user a bigger and larger attack surface.
Likelihood to Renew
9
Cisco ASA is really great product, it has helped keeping the infrastructure secure. It helped having the remote vpn connected, so making sure access via anywhere is secure. Cisco has the best in the market support due to large user community.
I took back one point as competetors are also coming with some great solutions where Cisco still needed to work more.
Implementation Rating
10
Cisco implementation is really easy and highly resilient. We can build the firewall solution in active-passive mode which make sure at least one firewall to be available, even if other is malfunctioning. Cisco ASA is also available as virtual security module which we can utilise in public cloud and Linux machine with other added features.
Reliability and Availability
10
I generally have not noticed the outages, however since it's a machine it can malfunction, we need to implement the firewall infrastructure in such a way that it is highly available with device failure, region failure etc. Else any solution will be having the issues if they are not build with resiliency.
Ease of Integration
10
Cisco ASA can easily be integrated with different products as it supports all the open source protocols such as IPSEC, BGP, OSPF etc.
On backend we can use any device to connect with Firewall.
In cloud we can implement it as a network virtual appliance. Which make sure we will have multiple options available for ASA integration.

Innovative Uses
  • Network Virtual Appliance
  • Hardware Firewall
  • Perimeter Security
  • Department saperation
  • Tenant saperation

Cisco ASA Review.

Rating: 4 out of 10
Incentivized
August 05, 2022
Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology
Oil & Energy Company, 501-1000 employees
Vetted Review
Verified User
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
7 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We have used ASA to interconnect branch offices and also as a gateway. It's been a good product over the past years. Nowadays a lot of firewalls have overtaken the product. Especially in terms of user-friendliness. Also, the performance of the product should be improved compared to the other firewalls out there in the market.
Pros
  • Vpn
  • Natting
  • Av scan.
  • Web filtering.
Cons
  • Definitely when troubleshooting. It should be made simpler.
  • AV scan engines should be improved.
  • Configuration can be made simpler.eg: Fortigate.
Likelihood to Recommend
It's well suited for the rigid environment. In remote site locations where there is difficulty in accessing it's not a good idea as it's difficult for an end-user to provide remote access to the device. I understand it could be a security issue. But there are other means it can be secured. 2FA should be integrated.
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software Feature Ratings
Firewall (10)
68%
6.8
Identification Technologies
70%
7.0
Visualization Tools
30%
3.0
Content Inspection
40%
4.0
Policy-based Controls
100%
10.0
Active Directory and LDAP
10%
1.0
Firewall Management Console
90%
9.0
Reporting and Logging
100%
10.0
VPN
100%
10.0
High Availability
100%
10.0
Stateful Inspection
40%
4.0
Return on Investment
  • It's too costly.
  • An annual subscription is also a pain. Every time we go to the management there is a struggle for approval. This should be at least fixed for a 3-year period. (Not by requesting to pay I'm advance).
Alternatives Considered
This was selected due to our organization standard and our branch office is using ASA. Integration with the same product is really a good option with ASA.
Other Software Used
Resilience
Clearly, resilience differs from security. Resilience is about knowing something is going to come. That is the new paradigm in the security world, compared to the past which was about defending and making ure nothing happens. Over time, it became clear that watertight prevention is no longer a realistic goal. Scaled detection and measured response are. Hence resilience is one of the most important factor which needs to be considered on a cyber secuirty product.
Leadership in Resilience
The answer to this is defenelty AI has to play a bog role in this. If we need to achive a shorter resilience time then AI should play a major role.
Likelihood to Renew
5
To be honest there has been now great products out in the market compared to Cisco ASA. I beleieve Cisco has to do a lot of improvement in this area. The other defeiniete factors is the cost when it comes to renewals which is always a premium on Cisco products.
Implementation Rating
6
It was quite a good one, how ever requires an expertise to deploy hence the SMB segment would be finding it difficult to implement this product. The one good reason is that there are lot of ASA certified engineers in compared to the other certified engineers. Hence this resembles positively on the deployment as you have quite a lot of experienced engineer on your deployment.
Reliability and Availability
5
The software has a lot of boot time compared to the other OS which is one of the biggest problem I have faced on the unplanned outages. In terms of availability I would recommend Cisco to work hard on improving this feature as you could see products like Juniper / Fortgiate they have this available with a single click of a button. In cisco quite a few engineered work is required to achive this. But once this is achieved, this is very reliable.
Ease of Integration
3
Intergration has never been Cisco's forte even though they claim they have a lot of open source protocols. As a network vendor Cisco has to focus more on contributing to the open source protocols. An EG in the routring protocols Cisco has OSPF as an open source however, EIGRP has been the best compared to OSPF. So we might end up with a full Cisco equipment which I believe is not right, rather Cisco should have invested in developing the OSPF.
Innovative Uses
  • VPN
  • IPS
  • Support
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